We welcome a new year with good enrolments and health registration across our undergraduate classes as lower-level GRSJ courses are in high demand.
The Undergraduate Program Committee will discuss in the coming months our plans towards GRSJ Curriculum Review by identifying gaps and needs for new courses based on new faculty hires, student feedback, and upcoming implementation of Arts Ways of Knowing requirements in 2024. Working with the new Pedagogy and Curriculum (PAC) Committee, we plan to revise existing courses and develop new ones Major/Minor requirements for GRSJ and CSIS Programs; revise GRSJ Statement of Inclusion and Respect, especially regarding accessibility; and review our current requirements and student career pathways through Work Integrated Learning Programs. This curriculum review process coincides with preparations for UBC’s transition to the Workday Student platform, which will happen throughout 2023 and 2024.
We continue to remain vigilant and mindful of safety for queer and trans students. We facilitated a dialogue between students, faculty, and staff about campus safety in light of the recent transphobic incident in a CSIS class, which occurred amidst the increasing violence, hostility, and targeting of trans people, especially youth, everywhere. This open dialogue included Laura Harvey, the ARTS Embedded Counsellor; staff from the Equity and Inclusion Office; and GRSJ faculty and students.
Our Undergrad Program secured a Sustainability in Education Grant, co-led by Nora and Kim, to strengthen sustainability education at UBC through the integration of a JEDDI lens (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Decolonization, Inclusion, and Indigenization). The project involves reviewing and possibly revising the GRSJ undergraduate courses currently listed on the Sustainability Hub as recommended courses and creating a new course, Intersectional Approaches to Thinking Sustainability as a complement to GRSJ 300: Intersectional Approaches to Thinking Gender. Two graduate students, Marianne El-Mikati and Yara Ahmed, have been supporting the project’s resource collections, course syllabi review and analysis.
We have announced two Undergraduate Student Awards: First, the Masuhara Family Award in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice Awards totalling $2000 a year made available through an endowment established by Dr. Joy Masuhara (B.Sc. Pharm.) 1980, M.D. 1991) for undergraduate students in GRSJ programs who are in need of financial assistance to complete their education and are from communities that have been historically, persistently and systemically marginalized. Second is the Susanne Lester Award in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice-E0692 Awards totalling $1,300 have been made available through an endowment established by CUPE 2950 in memory of Susanne Lester (1949-2020), for outstanding fourth-year Bachelor of Arts students majoring in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice who have demonstrated an interest in labour movements, women’s history, Indigenous rights, or intersectional feminisms. Susanne was one of UBC’s longest-standing employees with fifty years of service, and began her career in 1969 as a reference assistant in Koerner Library. Susanne was passionate about women’s rights, social justice, and equality and was one of the founding organizing committee members instrumental in creating the Association of University and College Employees (AUCE) Local 1.
